So i have started to think that what I have thought about dieting and eating has been all wrong this whole time...

So i have posted on here a few times in the past month since I started my weightloss journey. I have been VERY good about eating (only slip up was homemade cornbread, see that thread for more info). I was good.. until last week...

So I was out of town for a trip with a big group and was gone for just over 1 week (8 days). I had no say in where we ate out, only what I ordered at those places. I tried my best finding the healthiest things I could (and even google-ed for healthy options when I knew in advanced where I was going to be eating). But everyone knows how that goes... even if you eat the chicken and veggies of course there are going to be some restaurants that bring out the bread, biscuits, etc. before the meal starts (and I couldn't say no). I even had ice cream and potatoes.

So i got on the scale when I got back yesterday morning.. preparing myself for the worst. I knew I was going to gain at least 5 pounds back (I had lost 12 total) because of how I was eating.

So... the scale read 2 pounds LOWER than it did when I left 8 days prior.

I've had similar experiences. When I went home for Thanksgiving last year I thought I would come home and have gained and I was actually 4lbs lighter over the course of two weeks.

Another time when I was dieting I lost my drive and ate fast food two times at the end of the week. When I weighed in that week I was down 3lbs which was more then I'd lose in a week staying completely on plan.

I'm in the school of thought that sometimes when we feed our bodies more then it's used to it gives a boost to our metabolism. Calorie cycling is a concept you might be interested in.

You could have had your calories lower than you thought. Also, maybe you were overdo for a big woosh and so you had a 2 lb weight loss instead....which is awesome considering what you had done. Some of it can also have to do with calorie cycling and some of it could have to do with water fluctuations. Either way, I hope this motivates you to be on track and continue with your wonderful progress!

To me, it doesn't seem like that big of a mystery. Losing weight doesn't require perfection, it just requires improvement.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Live4Summer13

I have been VERY good about eating (only slip up was homemade cornbread, see that thread for more info). I was good.. until last week...

This is the biggest myth about weight loss, that if we're "good" (following a whole laundry list of what being "good" means) we'll be rewarded with weight loss.

If we break any of our rules, or eat anything off plan we'll be "punished" with weight gain (which isn't true at all if all of our mistakes are still better than what we were doing before).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Live4Summer13

So I was out of town for a trip with a big group and was gone for just over 1 week (8 days). I had no say in where we ate out, only what I ordered at those places. I tried my best finding the healthiest things I could (and even google-ed for healthy options when I knew in advanced where I was going to be eating). But everyone knows how that goes... even if you eat the chicken and veggies of course there are going to be some restaurants that bring out the bread, biscuits, etc. before the meal starts (and I couldn't say no). I even had ice cream and potatoes.

OMG, {gasp of horror} you ate bread, ice cream and potatoes and didn't gain 10 lbs? That can't be right, it violates the "punishment" rule. Why just one bite of potatoes deserves at least a 2 lb gain in punishment. You were "bad" so you deserved "punishment" and are wondering why you didn't get it.

The answer is that you ate fewer calories than you burned. You were careful and made the best choices you could under the circumstances. You weren't being rewarded for good behavior, nor were you being punished for bad behavior. Weight loss occurred because you ate fewer calories and/or burned more calories than you took in.

Simple, easy, and completely logical.

Now if you had gained, it would have been just as logical. You would have taken in more caloreis than you burned, and/or some of it could have been water retention from the sodium in restaurant food - but that still would have been logical and entirely understandable.

You don't have to make perfect choices to lose weight, you just have to make better ones.

The answer is that you ate fewer calories than you burned. You were careful and made the best choices you could under the circumstances. You weren't being rewarded for good behavior, nor were you being punished for bad behavior - you simply made better choices than you did before you started losing weight, and it resulted in weight loss.

Simple, easy, and completely logical.

Now if you had gained, it would have been just as logical. You would have eaten more caloreis than you burned, or some of it could have been water retention from the sodium in restaurant food - but that still would have been logical and entirely understandable.

You don't have to make perfect choices to lose weight, you just have to make better ones.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly..."

Its entirely possible, the equation of weightloss is no great mystery for those with normal metabolisms. Weightless isn't linear, but if you are consistently creating a calorie deficit, you will lose weight. There is no inherent evil property to white carbs that most people can't digest them without much issue, so long as they are not overeating to the point of excess calorie consumption (which causes weight gain).

This happened to me!
My Mother-in-law and brother and sister in law were here for 4 days and we ate out multiple times. Now granted that I had a salad once and only ate half of my junkie food the other times, but I lost 3 lbs in that 4 days!
I know I really lost it because that was last week and I went from 215 to 212. This week I'm 209 so I know it's gone for good.

Its entirely possible, the equation of weightloss is no great mystery for those with normal metabolisms.

No matter your metabolism, it still boils down to what you're taking in, and what you're burning. It boils down to other things too, but none of them are mysteries that cannot be solved. It's all science (and most of it's actually well understood science, so the information is out there, unfortunately so is a lot of crap so you need to understand valid science well enough to recognize it when you see it).

If a person feels the results on the scale are random and unfathonable, the frustration level goes through the roof, and it makes staying on plan harder. It's entirely logical to think, "If what I do doesn't seem to matter, why am I putting so much energy into it?"

I have one of the craziest metabolisms. I lose far better on low-carb than high-carb food. I can stall on 1800 calories of high-carb food (which at my weight should be virtually impossible, until you understand the science). I can do "everything right" and still see a gain. I can (much less frequently) have a huge calorie-binge of 7,000 excess caloies and have it not appear on the scale at all, ever - when the "math" says that I should have gained two pounds.

As "weird" as my metabolism sounds, it's not a mystery. It's a science I don't completely understand (yet), but through reading and my own experiments I understand it better and better every day.

The more we understand, and the more we feel in control of, the easier it is to stick with it. When we dismiss it all as mystery, it makes it a whole lot harder.

So many times people give up because they're not losing weight consistently every week, or because they're putting in a whole lot of effort, cutting their calories way back and still not seeing results, and they quit because they don't understand.

We take frustration and cluelessness as a given in weight loss, and tell people to learn to get used to both. "Get used to not understanding - Get used to feeling frustrated."

I disagree. I think that frustration can only happen out of ignorance - when we don't get what we expect. And if we understand what's going on, we know what to expect, or at least we know what we can't predict.

Knowledge is the enemy of frustration. And taking the mystery out of dieting is also going to take the frustration out of it, and since frustration is the number one killer of weight loss attempts, it's extremely important to take the mystery out of it.